BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    




          Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary

                                SB 570  (Alarcon)

Hearing Date:5/17/99            Amended:4/27/99        
Consultant: Lisa Matocq         Policy Vote:Pub Saf 5-0
____________________________________________________________ 

BILL SUMMARY:  SB 570 (1) creates a new sentence  
enhancement for "terrorist threats" committed against  
school personnel, as specified, (2) increases misdemeanor  
penalties for disrupting school activities, as specified,  
and (3) contains legislative intent related to school  
personnel report missing children.  
                         Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
  Major Provisions                       1999-2000         2000-01        2001-02      
  Fund  
Sentence enhancement           Unknown increased costs for incarceration     
General
                          in state prison
Misdemeanors              Unknown increased, mandated, nonreim       Local
                          bursable costs for county jail

STAFF COMMENTS:  This bill may meet the criteria to be  
placed on the Suspense File.  Under current law, it is a  
misdemeanor for any person to disrupt school activities, as  
specified.  This bill revises and increases the misdemeanor  
penalties for two offenses involving disrupting school  
activities.  Current law also makes it a wobbler,  
punishable by up to 1 year in county jail or in state  
prison, to commit a terrorist threat. This bill adds a  
sentence enhancement of 1, 2 or 3 years in state prison, or  
a fine of up to $5,000, or both, if the threat was made  
against specified school personnel.  It also contains  
legislative intent that specified persons, including school  
teachers, administrators, aides, playground workers, and  
bus drivers, "report missing children to a law enforcement  
agency in a timely manner".  

There were 513 prison admissions during 1997-98 for  
terrorist threats.  Some persons may serve additional time  
in state prison as a result of the sentence enhancement but  
there is no way to know how many, or how many would be  
ordered to pay the fine in lieu of imprisonment.  For  
illustrative purposes, if 10% of prison admissions were  
impacted, increased incarceration costs could be $1 million  










annually.  It would take only 8 inmates serving additional  
time to exceed annual incarceration costs of $150,000. In  
addition, there are unknown increased mandated,  
nonreimbursable costs for the misdemeanor provisions of the  
bill.

The provisions of bill related to reporting missing  
children are not binding.  Therefore, to the extent that  
school personnel report missing children they wouldn't  
otherwise report, and law enforcement agencies, in turn,  
issue missing persons bulletins or investigate cases they  
wouldn't otherwise, there are unknown increased,  
nonreimbursable costs.  However, if SB 6 (Rainey), on this  
Committee's Suspense File, is enacted, any increased law  
enforcement activities resulting from the intent language  
in this bill would become reimbursable as a state-mandated  
local program.